I don't get to do as much walking as I would like, but when I do, I feel great. Walking feels like a revolutionary art these days. This short but wtunning book invokd so many feelings for me. I wish this was 300 pages long because I would read it.
Merging the personal and the political, observation and contemplation, the author examines what her life is and wonders what it should be; what is expected of a thirty year old woman by society, by family and friends and by herself. She walks the streets of her London, creating it and herself -- gaining agency by being in control of her own direction, speed and momentum. Walking is both an internal and external experience. It's a time for self-reflection, for observing others and for imagining how we appear to them. What is expected of a person of our age, sex, and race, and how should that influence what we do and how we feel about ourselves?
A poignant and contemporary meditation on gender politics, social commentary, and eighties movies, all interlaced with shards of autobiography and illustrated with a beautiful series of sequential and non-sequential watercolour images.
